BOWERS Jane Gardner Riley Bowers, born May 29, 1921, died Sunday, June 18, 2000. Preceded in death by her parents, Ethel Murphy Tobin and Lowell Meeker Riley. She was the niece of famed aerial surveys pioneer and World War 1 Ace, Edgar Gardner Tobin. Mrs. Bowers was an internationally recognized songwriter. Many of her songs were recorded by The Kingston Trio. She was honored by Johnny Cash on his HBO Special for her song, "Remember the Alamo". "Señora", "El Matador", "The Coast of California" and thirty-five other songs are still being played and re-recorded in the United States and Europe. The song was recorded by The Kingston Trio, Tex Ritter, and the version I learned it from, Donovan as well as John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt- whom God preserve! But Johnny Cash, however loved and respected did not write it- and I like Donovan's chords better too. Cheers Dave

Don't be cruel, Greg....they bear some relationship to the actual historical event....just a bunch of mythical innacuracies thrown in for dramatic effect, that's all.

You might like this parody of it that I wrote better:

So, here's the story....

THE INTRO:

It is a little known fact that the garrison of the Alamo numbered about 85,000 Texians, most of whom were huddling in terror behind the walls as a Mexican army of about 1500 approached under command of the flamboyant and vainglorious dictator, Santa Ana, the self-proclaimed "Napoleon of the West". Fortunately for the Texians, there were three men of real grit in the garrison who were in a position of command, and who might be counted upon to stir some herioc passions in the breasts of their chicken-hearted comrades. There were also a couple of farm animals who proved absolutely vital to the defence of the fort, and their part has been suppressed in the popular mythology that later arose around the battle. At any rate, the Mexican army (soon reinforced to about 2400 men) was blissfully unaware that it had surrounded a garrison of approximately 35 times its own strength in numbers. Had the Mexicans known this, they would have fled immediately. They were under the impression, though, that there were less than 200 poorly armed men defending the fort, so they prepared a siege and bombarded the place for 12 days while the 85,000 Texians hunkered down, prayed, wept, swore, and wrote desperate letters to their wives and sweethearts.

By the 12th day Travis had realized that reinforcements were not forthcoming and that little time was left before the shit would hit the fan. He summoned the entire garrison to parade in the open square and gave them a dramatic choice! Our song begins....

The Battle of the Alamo - 1836

85,000 were challenged by Travis to die By a line that he drew with his sword when the battle was nigh And him that would fight to the death cross over But the others had better vamoose! And over that line came three men, a pig, and a goose!

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

'Twas Travis and Bowie and Crockett who dared to remain And the pig and the goose crossed over the line unashamed But 84,998 Texans were lacking in grit The sight of the Mexican Army had given them fits

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're fleeing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, when we're far from the Alamo!

So 84,000 came pouring out over the walls While another 600 tried to hide in the urinal stalls Fifty men ran for the pigpen, twenty-eight jumped in the well 320 were trampled to death when they fell

And the 84,000 came pouring out over the walls When the Mexicans saw that mob coming, they were plainly appalled They threw down their rifles, abandoned their cannons In panic and fled from the field As the goose honked in joy and the pig triumphantly squealed:

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

86,000 men scattered like shot from a gun The Texans and Mexicans showed the world how they could run They ran for the rivers, they ran for the hills, they dug holes and hid in the dirt Santa Ana lost both of his boots, his hat, and his shirt

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

"We've won," cried out Travis, in wonder, "and the glory's all mine!" "Like hell!" growled Jim Bowie, "I outrank you, and you ain't worth a dime!" Then up stepped bold Davie Crockett, his rifle held firm in his hand Said, "If there's to be one lone survivor here, I am that man!" Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

Jim Bowie was found with a bayonet stuck in his chest While Travis lay dead with a bullet hole right through his breast And bold Davie Crockett lay cold as a sprocket, the Bowie knife deep in his heart While the goose and the pig danced a jig on the bloody ramparts!

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

Santa Ana was ruined, he had to go back in disgrace He'd lost half his army, but worse than that, he'd lost face The pig and the goose caught a train to Ohio where they got a good job at the zoo And the Alamo stands as the proof that this story is true

Hey—up! Santa Ana, we're killing your soldiers below So the rest of Texas will know, and remember the Alamo!

Yes, the Alamo stands as proof of all that I've said It will stand there forever to honor the glorious dead But no one remembers the brave little pig and no one remembers the goose Where's the honor in that? Where's the justice? And what's the excuse?

Hey--up! Santa Ana, they drove off your soldiers below And the rest of Texas should know How they fought for the Alamo!

Yes, I think that's right. It seems reasonably likely that Crockett (and a few others) were captured alive and executed shortly afterward.

The thing about Travis drawing the "line in the sand" appears to have no basis in fact whatsoever. He did make a speech to the troops admitting that the garrison had little hope of survival, and advising that anyone who wished to try to slip out at night and escape would bear no shame for doing so. Virtually everyone decided to remain there and face whatever came, but they had little illusions about the likelihood of survival once the Mexicans made a full assault.

Davy Crockett was not "young", as the song lyrics say...he was middle-aged at the time, and an excellent leader of men.

It seems likely that he very nearly picked off Santa Ana with a very long range rifle shot.

The final Mexican assault was launched under cover of darkness, by stealth, in the wee hours of the night. The garrison did not become aware of the attack until the Mexicans had reached the very walls, and it precipitated a desperate fight in which the Mexicans suffered very heavy casualties before getting inside the compound...they then killed the Texans almost to the last man (with many casualties on both sides), but probably captured a few of them.

A number of the Texans were slave owners. Slavery was illegal in Mexico.

Santa Ana was probably one of the poorest generals of all time. He truly excelled at making gross military errors, and squandered his army in the ill-thought frontal assault at the Alamo and the total disaster at San Jacinto. But at least he had the sense to make the Alamo attack under cover of darkness! It would have been worse losses for the Mexicans if he'd done it in broad daylight.

The recent movie "The Alamo" was a realistic and fine portrayal of the history, by far the best movie yet about it. The old John Wayne movie from the 60s was utter tripe.

Santa Ana could have just ignored th Texians at Bexar and attacked the settlements to the east. as LH pointed out stupid and costly, caused most probably for revenge for his brother-inlaw(Gen Cos) being driven out of San Antonio by the Texans in Dec 1835. Mike

To besiege the Alamo was pointless and unnecessary. It delayed the Mexican army from doing much more vital strategic things that could have won them the campaign. It was simply a grandiose act of pride by Santa Ana. Militarily speaking, the man was an idiot.

Slavery was illegal in Mexico? Santa Anna was a dictator. All the people in Mexico were his slaves. From Wikipedia:

"...He formed a new Catholic, centralist, conservative government which replaced the 1824 constitution with the new constitutional document, entitled "The Seven Laws" (Constitution of 1836). Santa Anna dissolved the Congress and began the centralization of power. The regime became a centralized dictatorship backed by the military.

Several states openly rebelled against the changes: Coahuila y Tejas (which was to become the Republic of Texas), San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas. Several of these states formed their own governments, the Republic of the Rio Grande, the Republic of Yucatan, and the Republic of Texas. (Only the Texans defeated Santa Anna and retained their independence)."

Texas rebelled because Santa Anna dissolved the constitution the state had agreed to. Santa Anna broke a contract.

That's a pointless point, ichmichael. Slavery is a legal definition of ownership of human beings, not a definition of the comparative political freedoms of a society. A slave was a human being who was purchased like an animal...just like buying a cow or a goat...and who was used to perform various types of manual labour like a beast of burden for the rest of his life by his owner.

Mexicans were not slaves. They did not see themselves as slaves, they were proud people who saw themselves as free men. When they worked, they got paid for it. The people they worked for did not own them (though it got fairly close to that on some of the big agricultural haciendas run by the rich).

Slavery was already illegal in most of the rest of the Europeanized world when the battle for Texas occurred, but it was still entirely legal in the USA. Those were pre-civil War days.

That's all I was saying. I was not defending Santa Ana's government which was just one more example of a corrupt dictatorship in Mexico. Yes, he was a very corrupt dictator, but Mexicans were not slaves and they did not practice the buying and selling of human beings as was done in the southern USA.

The Texans, in my view, were right to rebell against Santa Ana, and the other Mexican states who rebelled against him were also right to do so. I was not trying to defend Santa Ana in any way by saying slavery was illegal in Mexico, I was just stating a fact.

You must remember that the Texans were not perfect either. They were not saints. They were people who were the product of their own time and culture and who had moral imperfections of their own...as did the Mexicans too...and they were doing what they felt was in their own best interest.

People have a way of turning one side into saints and the other into evil people after a historical thing like that Texan war happens. The real truth is that most of them were neither saints nor evil people...they were just ordinary people trying to earn a living, survive, and get by. This was as true of the common Mexican soldier as it was of the Texans and Mexicans who fought against those soldiers.

If you think that people living under a dictatorship are thereby defined as "slaves"...I suggest you go down to any one of a number of military dictatorships which are presently longstanding good allies and friends of the USA...walk up to some man there on the street or in a bar and tell him: "You're a slave."

See what happens...you may not survive too long that way, but you'll learn something.

Not at all relevant to this discussion, but Indians (notably Apaches and Yaquis) were being enslaved by Mexicans, both those of full and part-European descent, long after the US Civil War ended the legal slavery of Black Americans.

I think you're right about that, Art. Indians, unfortunately, were in a very bad spot in Mexico. So it was illegal to buy and sell Black people in Mexico, but they had a different code when it came to Indians. There was a bounty paid for Indian scalpa. There was pretty much continuous war going on between the Mexicans and the Indian tribes you mentioned, and no quarter was given on either side.

The Apaches just hated the Mexicans....and the Mexicans felt the same way toward them. Both sides accused the other of committing atrocities...both sides were quite correct in leveling such accusations...but it would be damned hard to determine who started it all in the first place.

Well, I'm not arguing...didn't even see who's name was attached to that statement.

It gets tedious when modern day revisionists say Santa Ana was motivated by a desire to help black slaves. He wasn't a humanitarian. He was a lunatic and a bad strategist. And if a peon had walked up to Santa Ana and said, "I'm not your slave!" well, that would have been one less peon in the world. The legal or written definition of slavery is...nothing. In reality, Mexicans are still slaves. Chase Manhattan owns the country.

And the battle against the banksters still goes on in our state. Suffered a bitter, bitter loss the other day. Woman with a MEXICAN name was robbed of the governorship. Here's my post-election analysis:

Sad, sad day for this state. We could have financially independent under her (we have the 8th largest economy in the world), but now it looks like we'll be dragged through the muck with the rest of the states.

Anyway, if Medina had become governor, she would have used state sovereignty to nullify abusive federal legislation. That would have resulted in Washington threatening to withhold federal money from us, but I believe we only get back 47 cents for each buck we pay in taxes at this time, so where's the threat? In response, we would have quit paying federal taxes. That would have immediately provided a cash infusion for the state economy. Taxation would then have been re-structured fairly and the state would have boomed. AND, we would've been free to grow. We have oil and gas, agriculture, deep water ports, our own electrical grid (only state in the union with that). We would have become the MODEL of how a state could break away from the federal tit but still remain part of the union. And THAT is what Rick Perry and his globalist buddies are afraid of--the example we could set. So they got Glenn Beck, Mark Davis and Alex Jones to shave votes. They killed the best hope Texas had of averting economic catastrophe. They blighted the U.S. with more of the same ol' same ol' too. No real change will come about in 2010 now, with the removal of the Medina example. Sad, sad.

LadyJean, that may be a bit of Houston's revisionist history. He said he sent Bowie to "blow up the Alamo", but that was after he did not send relief. I know he didn't have much of an army, but there were three hundred men at Golliad under Col Fannin who never responded to Travis's calls for help, and he did call many times. 32 very brave men from Gonzales were all that came. Mike

Yes,I thought the 1960s film starring John Wayne and the lovely Linda,was,although very entertaining,probably complete hogwash !! I imagine that the realities were much less theatrical,and a lot tougher and more cruel (and the women less gorgeous !). I didn't think much of Colonel Travis ( Laurence Harvey's ) sword---he was able to snap it in half over his knee just before being killed,so it couldn't have been very strong !!

Glad to see, ichMael, (or is that Ishmael?) that there's at least one lunatic left pushing the nullifier/secessionist agenda that was thoroughly discredited & put to rest by Andy Jackson Abe Lincoln and a host of others over a hundred and fifty years ago.

Good to still have a few 'traditionalists"- however nonsensical- around.

In April of last year we succeeded in getting a State Sovereignty Resolution through the legislature. The governor (Perry) had no alternative but to sign it, so he turned the signing into a media circus where he dropped the word "secession." THAT is what got all the attn in the news. Perry made what political hay he could out of a bad situation.

Perry has been working hand in glove with Cintra (a Spanish company, owned by King Juan Carlos of Spain) to turn over the roadways in Texas to, well...the King of Spain. We've beat back the effort twice, but Perry keeps on coming. His goal is to sell us out to global financial interests. And if Kay Bailey Hutchison (currently a corrupt U.S. Senator) had replaced him, the agenda would have remained the same.

Medina's plan of action would have cut off federal money coming into Texas, but we could have made up the lack of Federal money overnight by cutting off money going to Washington and diverting that cash to state coffers.

Medina was perhaps the greatest danger in the world (for a month) to the global banking syndicate. If Texas had become financially independent of the federal government, our example could have begun a domino effect in the U.S. Other states with sound economies would have followed our lead. This wouldn't be secession, it would be cutting off the flow of revenue to the vampiric government in Washington. Medina was on FIRE for 3 weeks, climbing from 4% to 24% before the media smear was launched.

I hope she looks at the voting results and moves to one of the congressional districts that gave her 70% of the vote so she can run for U.S. congress.

We've dealt with this before. There was even a thread called "Alamo: Needless Martyrs?" Easy to blame Houston--if you do no research.

From the earlier thread:

General Houston, in charge of the regulars, had in fact sent Jim Bowie to carry the word to destroy the Alamo and retire to a more defensible position--as originally a mission, it was not a good place to be besieged.

But what appears to have happened is that when Bowie got there he was so impressed with what had been done to improve the position-- and he possibly considered it essential as a forward post--that he decided to stay and help improve it further. Houston had sent a message to Gov. Smith (who of course was no real governor, but seems to have been the head of the governing committee of Texas, a la the Continental Congress.) Houston told Smith that the the Alamo should be abandoned if Smith saw fit. Gov. Smith apparently did not see fit.

The defenders of the Alamo did call for reinforcements but few came, due to their own problems. Goliad, for instance, was a real fort--but still the defenders wound up surrendering--and being massacred.

It appears that Fannin, who had about 500 men, was ordered by Houston to march to the relief of the Alamo, but could not cross the river with his artillery. He had also been ordered to abandon Goliad and retreat to a more defensible position. He and most of his men were caught in the open, defeated, and eventually massacred.

Santa Ana, unfortunately, did not regard the normal rules of war (don't kill your prisoners) as extending to the Texans, because he saw them as mere "piratas" (pirates). He didn't regard them as a legal army at all, therefore he showed them no mercy when prisoners were taken.

This kind of ruthless arrogance does not speak well for Santa Ana. After his defeat and capture at San Jacinto, Houston gave him his own life in return for Texan independence, and made sure that he signed a document to that effect.

This must have been rather disappointing to Houston's men, because they wanted to hang Santa Ana.

An interesting thing about that is that the document Santa Anna signed placed the border between Texas and Mexico at the Rio Grande rather than the Rio Nueces, which had been the boundary between the two parts of Coahuila y Tejas state. Although Santa Anna was the head of state at the time (one of many between 1930 and 1850), that treaty was never "officially" accepted by Mexico. When Texas joined the US in 1845 (following another incursion into Texas by Santa Anna, briefly back as president, in 1842), this disagreement on the actual border location was one of the precipitating events of the US-Mexico War.

These Alamo threads pop up here and there every year, and I wanted to mark this one with the Debra Medina story. The fight for Texas Independence goes on. The fight to keep Texas under the thumb of Spain goes on. Very little has changed, but I think the Medina incident stirred up a lot of awareness about what could have been.

Santa Ana was a New Jerseyite- for a while. During one of his exiles from Mexico (a love-hate relationship) he introduced chicle, the basis for chewing gum, to Thomas Adams in the hope that it could be used as a substitute for rubber. That idea didn't fly, but it could be chewed. In 1884, with licorice added, Adams marketed Adams Black Jack gum. The enterprise involved Edward Beeman, who pushed pepsin as a digestive aid (Beeman's Pepsin chewing gum). I have forgotten the exact details (posted somewhere in an earlier thread).

Just think, Santa Ana could have stayed in the U. S. and become a part of American entrepreneurial history!

Please note that I didn't say "cause"...I said "precipitating event". The underlying cause was the myth of "Manifest Destiny" espoused by politicians from the Southern states, who were actually seeking additional slave states.

As far as I can see, the USA is still pursuing Manifest Destiny right to this day, but now it mostly concerns oil-producing regions and places across which to build energy pipelines from those regions.

But the world's need for oil is disappearing. All countries that can afford to are going nuclear. No more need for oil.

So...the Dutch/Anglo-American oil monopoly becomes worth less and less with each passing day. This is the most perilous time in human history. The Dutch/English royalty and the Rockefellers are about to lose their stranglehold on the world's power supply. Look for a desperate move in Iran. The oil fields of Iran will be secured by the oil monopolists, and they will give us a limited nuclear war. The world will then shy away from anything "nuclear" and BP/Shell/Standard oil will have another 50 years of control. Or that's how it's beginning to look.

I do think there is great risk of a limited nuclear war involving Iran. If it happens, it will be another war of choice by the Anglo-American forces (and Israel)...but not by Iran. Iran will simply be the helpless recipient, that's all.

But, yeah, Little Hawk, the Anglo-American/Dutch stuff is interesting. The Dutch and English royal houses controlled the world when petroleum came along and promised to be the wave of the future. The royals would have owned all the world's oil, but old man Rockefeller in America began cutting throats right and left to get control of America's oil output. He succeeded and was able to force his way into the elite club. Today, all oil is owned, either outright or through intermediaries, by three families.

But anyway, nuclear power is a threat to the oil monopolists. Jimmy Carter worked with nuclear power in the navy. Atomic subs. He knew how safe nuclear power was. He wanted to provide America with cheap, safe power using nuclear energy. Kind of like FDR did with his TVA project building dams to provide hydroelectricity. But Carter was hamstrung because of the movie The China Syndrome, which was released on March 16, 1979, and then the Three Mile Island incident, which occurred on March 28, 1979. America was spooked by these two events, and Carter had to back off his nuclear plans. Some people say that the one-two punch of the movie and the accident were intentional. I wouldn't be surprised. What would YOU do if you thought like John D. Rockefeller?

After a nuclear exchange in the Middle East, we'll be told that ALL nuclear technology is bad, bad, bad. The oil monopolists will hope that scares us into continuing with the oil. The old China Syndrome / Three Mile Island feint once again.

So Iran does what it says it wants to do,develops a feasible weapon,then uses it to "wipe Israel off the map" or whatever ; Israel then retaliates,along with allies such as the US ,and Iran is then a "Helpless recipient " ???? Explain !!!

Iran has never at any time threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite that false propaganda phrase being repeated a billion times in our media by now by people who wish others to imagine Iran had said that.

The only credible reason for a country like Iran to develop a nuclear weapon of its own is to deter far better armed nuclear weapons powers from launching a first strike on Iran....as they obviously would very much like to do, and they talk about the possibility of attacking Iran quite frequently.....that is to say, they do exactly what they accuse Iran of doing: they build weapons of mass destruction, stockpile them, and claim the right to use them on someone else in a first strike.

It's a spectacular example of "Big Lie" doublespeak when others accuse Iran of plotting to do what they frequently talk openly about doing to Iran. They accuse Iran of their own obvious intentions, and that's what aggressors who are planning wars of choice usually do: they just accuse their next potential victim of having intentions of doing it to them.

Their own citizens usually believe that garbage...no problem, they are easily fooled by the domestic mass media who parrot whatever they are told to by the government...but no one else believes it.

Iran has not said it wants to develop a nuclear weapon. It has said it wants to develop nuclear power and it has every legal right to do that.

Yes, Iran will be the recipient if there is an attack. They won't be completely helpless, they'll fight back in various ways and cause some damage in return (specially in the area of the Gulf and Iraq), but when it comes to nuclear strikes....oh, they'll be helpless, all right.

So Iran does what it says it wants to do,develops a feasible weapon,then uses it to "wipe Israel off the map" or whatever ; Israel then retaliates,along with allies such as the US ,and Iran is then a "Helpless recipient " ???? Explain !!!

I wasn't going to respond to bubblyrat, Little Hawk, because I CAN'T explain how Israel would retaliate if it were wiped off the map.

Sorry I'm late to the thread. It's been busy down here in the great state. Let's all trade papers and grade each others' essays.

1. +5 "Remember the Alamo" was indeed written by Jane Bowers, though almost always attributed to someone else. Nice catch.

2. +5 "I believe there was a bagpipe playing Scot called John MacGregor who fought and died at the Alamo". He had a store in Nacogdoches that was the first stop for most new arrivals from the U.S. MacGregor was an active participant in the Texas revolution from the start.

3. -1 "It seems reasonably likely that Crockett (and a few others) were captured alive and executed shortly afterward." "The thing about Travis drawing the "line in the sand" appears to have no basis in fact whatsoever" No indisputable evidence one way or another. I think the first is more likely than the second, but that's just opinion.

4. -5 "He did make a speech to the troops admitting that the garrison had little hope of survival, and advising that anyone who wished to try to slip out at night and escape would bear no shame for doing so." Negative points asserting this as fact. Actually, it sounds a little of character for a guy who signs off his correspondence with "Victory or Death", but who really knows?

5. +5 "Davy Crockett was not 'young'" He was 49.

6. -5 "It seems likely that he very nearly picked off Santa Anna with a very long range rifle shot." In the movies, maybe.

7. -5 "The garrison did not become aware of the attack until the Mexicans had reached the very walls" The battle would have been over in about 10 minutes if this were true. The garrison was apparently alerted both by some Mexican troops cheering Santa Anna and by gunfire from picket guards; anyway, they were on the walls and shooting before the Santa Anna's army got there.

8. +5 "A number of the Texans were slave owners." Yup.

9. -5 "Slavery was illegal in Mexico." The economy of Mexico following the Spanish conquest was based on the encomienda, a system of forced labor. Native people were tied to the land, and the land, the natives, and their labor belonged to overlords with land grants from the crown. Over time this land-slavery evolved into peonage, or forced labor based on debt-slavery. Peonage was finally outlawed in Mexico 1915, but it persisted until 1936 when Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas instituted a land reform program called the ejido.

10. +10 "But at least he had the sense to make the Alamo attack under cover of darkness! It would have been worse losses for the Mexicans if he'd done it in broad daylight." Excellent insight, the garrison's rifles were accurate at long range, a considerable advantage that was largely nullified by Santa Anna's night attack.

11. -5,000,000 "Santa Anna could have just ignored the Texians at Bexar and attacked the settlements to the east." Oh, no, no, no. It would have been military suicide to move his army east with the enemy garrisons at Goliad and San Antonio sitting across his supply lines -- garrisons with hundreds of armed men, a large collection of artillery at the Alamo, and garrisons capable of being reinforced! Unthinkable.

12. 0 "Militarily speaking, the man was an idiot." He had his good days and his bad days. At least he attacked in the dark.

13. -5 "Then he split his army up so that he only had around 700 soladatos with him when Houston finally attacked him." He had nearly 1400 troops at San Jacinto, Houston had 960 troops. Battlefield victories have less to do with numbers than they do with local superiority in force at decisive points. (I think you mean soldados, but maybe someone with more Spanish can help us with the right word.)

14. +10 "Several states openly rebelled against the changes: Coahuila y Tejas (which was to become the Republic of Texas), San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Zacatecas." Good point. In Mexican history Texas is only part of the Santa Anna story. May I recommend "Blood and Fire", a history of Mexico by T.R. Fehrenbach as a survey of Mexican history through the mid-20th century. BTW, the goal of the Texas revolution was initially to restore the Mexican constitution of 1824. In fact, the Alamo garrison probably never knew that Texas had declared independence since they were already besieged before it happened.

15. -5 "Coahuila y Tejas (which was to become the Republic of Texas)". Coahuila is still one of the Estados Unidos Mexicanos; Tejas became the Republic of Texas and is now one of the United States of America.

16. -1 "There was pretty much continuous war going on between the Mexicans and the Indian tribes you mentioned, and no quarter was given on either side." True but you left something out. Actually it was a three-way war, the Texans being the other side of the triangle. I would have started the list of tribes participating in hostilities with the Comanche.

17. -5 "Woman with a MEXICAN name was robbed of the governorship." Uh, she lost the party primary election because she only got 18.57% of the republican vote. I was pulling for her to throw Governor Goodhair into a run-off with Ms. Hutchison so we would get a few more weeks of 'Publicans running attack ads on each other, but that's just me.

18. +5 re blowing up the Alamo: "But what appears to have happened is that when Bowie got there he was so impressed with what had been done to improve the position-- and he possibly considered it essential as a forward post--that he decided to stay and help improve it further" Yup

19. -1 "Santa Anna, unfortunately, did not regard the normal rules of war (don't kill your prisoners) as extending to the Texans". Minor deduction on a technicality. It was not just the Texans. He and his troops killed prisoners in other parts of Mexico, too. All you had to do to qualify as a pirate was to oppose Santa Anna.

20. +9 "Santa Anna signed placed the border between Texas and Mexico at the Rio Grande rather than the Rio Nueces, which had been the boundary between the two parts of Coahuila y Tejas state… this disagreement on the actual border location was one of the precipitating events of the US-Mexico War." Exactly right and would have been 10 points if you'd said Rio Bravo del Norte instead of Rio Grande. Being Mexican, Santa Anna would have called the river by its Mexican name.

21. -5 "Iran has never at any time threatened to 'wipe Israel off the map'" Sure they did, most notably Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 26 October 2005 at the World Without Zionism Conference. The English translation of his speech is by his own Iranian Student's News Agency (ISNA).

One may look up the Alamo besieged in The Handbook of Texas (online). The names are all there.

Digression- Israel has no intention of letting the West Bank Palestinians have an independent government. And as long as it has this aim (unstated, of course) there will not be peace in the region. It also desires to dominate Lebanon with its better position on the Mediterranean. If Iran gets the bomb, that might help to bring balance to the Middle East.